I felt very overwhelmed reading some of the grant information but know it will be a necessity in light of the economy and school financing.I did like the examples that were posted.Grant writing is like applying for blue ribbon schools or schools to watch to me—a need to be concise but complete.I like to be on brainstorming committees for these kinds of projects rather than the writing end.I find it is important to have a good committee that comes with varied strengths—a few good barnstormers, a willing writer, a couple of editors and someone who has been successful in the past with this type of a project.

I will continue to watch for updates/discussions on favorite grant sites for future reference.Thanks!

I like doing the peer review process it forces me to critically look at the other projects.I always like to start with a couple of positive statements or an overall positive comment before I make any constructive criticism—I tried to be specific with comments and offer examples or ask questions. I felt my critiques were constructive.

I felt that project #5 was overwhelming to critique—there was a lot of information to look at and so my comments were probably more general than any of my other critiques. I love the creativity with this project.Project #6 was easier to critique because we working from the same basic article and then adding our creative and technological flair.I had a better idea of the framework of this project when critiquing.I also tried to make my comments fit the rubric.

The individual project reviews were fun and helpful.The comments were great.All criticism was constructive and made me reflect on my project.

I learned a great networking terms, got to see a variety of movies, databases, portfolio’s and have a ton of websites or software ideas to take back to my staff in my middle school.I always feel overwhelmed by the amount of information in some of these classes—I try to add the best to my delicious account for future reference.

Ubiquitous—weaving something into our life until we don’t notice it anymore.Some parts of technology are already there for me—like email and SKYPE but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

This was a great discussion!I enjoyed getting a glimpse into the AT&T classroom and some of the learning that goes on there!How great would that be to have all that available in your own classroom!Most of my peers agreed that it would cause us to teach differently and students to learn differently.

These types of tech rich classrooms open the students up to the global classroom—it gives them connections outside of the classroom, to their community, to their country and perhaps into space (like when the President or students get to connect with the International Space Station).

I think most of us agreed that a classroom like that would allow us to become student centered and more flexible.That the digital divide gives a huge disadvantage to districts that can not afford a lot of technology.It was refreshing to know that technology can level the playing field for disadvantaged or special need students.

Since our middle school is just turning 10 this year we are perceived as the island within our district.We were wired for technology.Our technology was brand new when we opened.We have a great media/tech team (boasting a little bit) that has been able to think outside the box, spend money to expand our technology and we have a district that supports technology with a lot of professional development.I think I counted 78 summer courses that are free to our staff using technology.We are to a point now that we are not just talking about Web2.0 tools that we are implementing them and teaching others how to integrate them into their content areas!Some days I feel like that AT&T classroom—we have all the stuff but are we using all to its potential?Not even close yet!Karen

I am sure glad that you did not start out with this as our first discussion!This is very researched based—my weakest area not coming from an education background.Although my nursing background and teaching nursing background I had some framework in which to start from.Once I got all the terminology down I could focus more on what the framework was all about.Reading the discussions always gives me insight into how other schools operate, what peers from education background are thinking and the different age groups of peers let me see their point of view—discussions are a huge part of learning for me.

Now back TPCK—I think most of us were in agreement that TPCK is the framework to adopt but getting there is another matter.Most of students felt that knowing the technology well enough to integrate it is the part where we fall short.One student commented that a 30 or 60 minute in-service does not mean we can integrate that technology in our content area.I so agree with that!I know that I am very lucky in our district with technology and professional development—when we instituted the TABLET Cadre’s on our hopes of one day having 1:1 computing in our district—the district spent a lot of money on hiring the right person to get this off the ground and then in the amount of professional development to support technology.When I got my tablet I had to meet once a month and participate in weekly discussions in the district moodle site.We had to present technology integration project at the end of the year with the rest of the schools and then we got to see what everyone else was doing as well!We will be starting our 4th Cadre this year!

We had tech coaches in each school and prior cadre members to support you along the way as well!All of this has definitely allowed many of our staff to confidently integrate technology into their content areas!We find that there is a better collaboration process in place since the Tablet Cadre’s started as well.I think that we have about 5 teachers that are enrolled in a special technology project/process with Will Richardson’s “Institute”—he has been rated one of the top ten technology educators in the country.

One of my peers commented that she didn’t think that you have to teach with technology to be successful and to have successful students—which may be true today but when these students graduate over the next 10 years, the business world will expect a certain level of expertise in using technology.I don’t think that you will be able to compete with a tech savvy person applying for the same job.The same holds true with the digital divide—we need to find ways to get technology into their hands (perhaps the mini-computers?) because they need to be on the same leveled playing field.

My last comment on TPCK that sometimes it is very difficult to read an article like the one that was assigned with all the author citations going on! It often disrupted the flow of the article.In the end I have learned a lot from these discussions.Karen

Although I have used many PowerPoint’s (ppts) for presentations and have sat through a million of them--this discussion helped me to focus on the actual skill involved with creating and delivering a great ppt. presentation.

In schools where there is not a lot of technology—ppt is probably one of the few used times when technology is used and so I definitely think there is a place for ppt presentations.

I like Guy Kawaski’s Rule of 10/20/30—10 slides/20 minutes/not smaller than 30 font size.It is probably a great rule for the classroom and in business.I like peer comments on how they present ppt. have an activity and review—using some of the above rules.

Other ideas I liked that peers or the articles presented were:

No more than one concept per pageUse photos not clipart(although I think there might be a place for clipart)We are not showing off tech skills it’s the presentations skills that are importantHave passion about the topic/presentationVisual learners may learn better with ppt. than just lectureBe an expert—very important(so you are not reading your ppt)Bold letters and simple colorsHave funI like Alexi Kaperev article on “Death by PowerPoint” which points out:SignificanceStructureSimplicityRehearsalI like our Tutorial project so much that I turned around and did similar projects with 2 teams of students.Using ppt, audacity and moviemaker.We had a lot of fun working on those!It also helped me to gain some expertise in that area—teaching others!

I recently have done a lot of ppt teaching and I have created a new rule—Reiber’s 5/5/40 for student presentations.Total of 5 slides, no more than 5 minutes long with a font of 40 so that entire class can see the presentation—this worked well to get class presentations done in 2 days.I also asked their only be titles and that the teacher have a content rubric and presentation rubric.We also live blogged these presentations (back channeling) which was another fun tech piece.

I did feel that most of the discussion topics under the main one led us back to the same discussions—a little too redundant for me.Karen

It is fascinating to think that we are preparing students for jobs and careers that don’t even exist yet. When I read most of the entries (as they are still coming in) I found the themes to be: Technology Skills and the Non-Technology Skills.

Students of the 21st Century will need to be:

Flexible in their thinking, open to inqury, critical thinking skills, high level thinking skills, complex problem solving skills, foreign language skills and good communicators. They need to take these skills and apply them to all subject areas including technology. Some colleagues talked about the digital divide–there are still the have and have nots. Govenor Stickland talked about having these skills in his address this week as well and leveling the playing field.

Well if that’s what students need to know–how are we as educators going to get them there. Many voiced these are skills they are already teaching and as far as technology is concerned–professional education! Modeling and not being afraid to learn new things. The pitfalls were discussed such as the new and innovative ways that students cheat! Always some bad with all the good!

Last Friday was our district inservice day–21st Century Learners!

Keynote speaker was not that impressive (he did not know his audience that well–our distircit was beyond his talk) Matt Williams, from the Knowlege Works Foundation (we had Wil Richardson last year–hard to live up to him!) But we did live blogging while the speaker was presenting. This was a good example of modeling. Although the blogging was not real effective because the speaker did become actively involved in it–it did expose us to new classroom strategies.

I facilitated a session on 21st Century Learners–what are the changes.

I had teachers from middle and high school and a couple of business partners. We looked at the areas Flow of Communicati on, Assessment, Research or Information Sources, Technology and Students Work. We compared the 20thcentury classroom to the 21st century classroom. It was like a walk down memory lane for some of us! Many of us marveled at the electric typewriter with automatic correction! LOL

The next session I attenedwas 21st Century Tools–we shared classroom practices and business practices. Business said number one skills students needed to come with was communication skills. Be able to express oneself professionally.

The third session I attended was Student Presentations. Our goal was to have students share how they are using technology in school and outside of school. These seniors shared about using Applets in math, using and controlling a satellite for conducting research in science class, probeware, some unique earth google tips, mixing music on the computer, using Digg, Facebook and other social networking sites.

The afternoon was spent in our own school where we had our own teachers leading technology sessions: Moodle, Audacity, Movie Maker, Photo Elements. We gave enough time this year so that staff could actually have plenty of time for actually setting up something they could use in the classroom. It was most excellent! I learned how to use cell phones for a neat project–I will share when we get to that in this class.

21 st Century Teaching and Learning is very exciting and will be evolving for some time to come! Ka